Roxburgh Park Cricket Club committee members are doing everything to ensure the survival of the club’s senior arm.
Having started the season with two senior Victorian Turf Cricket Association teams and a North West Metropolitan Cricket Association side, a lack of numbers late last year saw the club struggling to field a single side.
After discussions with the VTCA, the decision was made to continue fielding one team for the rest of the season.
That team is competing in the north-west C3 competition, several grades lower than the north A1 division the Falcons’ top side had previously been part of.
Falcons secretary Susan Saunders said they were left with little option but to reduce the number of teams.
But she said that keeping at least one senior side going was massive for the club.
“A lot of people were going overseas,” she said. “We lost a lot of players and a lot couldn’t continue for the rest of the season.”
Saunders said the club wanted to ensure it had senior sides for its juniors to step into in the future.
“We have a lot of under-16s that will be coming up in the next season,” she said.
“We wanted to ensure we kept open a senior side that the players can come through to.
“Some of those players have started to play in the senior side now and are getting used to senior cricket.”
She said the club also had good numbers in the lower grades and Milo and T20 blast programs.
“We’re just rebuilding from the bottom up,” she said
VTCA president Steve McNamara said it was an unusual situation when teams movd grades mid-season.
He said ensuring Roxburgh Park continued to field senior sides was vitally important.
“We’d hate to see any club fall by the wayside,” he said.
“We support clubs through the association that are going through rough patches.
“They’ve got such wonderful facilities that a lot of money has been spent on.
“We’d hate to see this lost to cricket, along with the opportunity for people in the area to play cricket.”
McNamara said the club’s position in relation to the number of juniors it had would be a big plus going forward.
“They have a tremendous number of juniors who will progress through to senior cricket,” he said.
“When the numbers improve, they can look at having a second and third side.”
McNamara said the association would continue to help the club throughout the rest of the season, and during the off-season, to attract new players.
Saunders said the club was still looking for players interested in playing this season.
